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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Food (and supplements) for thought

Saw this photo being passed around on Facebook (photo via Information is Beautiful).  The larger the circle, the higher Google search rate.  Depending on color, this photo organizes based on actual evidence of effectiveness for the conditions listed inside the bubble .  I haven't done any deep research on these items myself, so I can't verify how true all of this is.. but hey, more food for thought.

This image is a “balloon race”. The higher a bubble, the greater the evidence for its effectiveness. But the supplements are only effective for the conditions listed inside the bubble.You might also see multiple bubbles for certain supps. These is because some supps affect a range of conditions, but the evidence quality varies from condition to condition. For example, there’s strong evidence that Green Tea is good for cholesterol levels. But evidence for its anti-cancer effects is conflicting. In these cases, we give a supp another bubble.This visualisation generates itself from this Google Doc. So when new research comes out, we can quickly update the data and regenerate the image. (How cool is that??)

(Click image to enlarge)